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Posts tagged ‘date’

Being married for 32 years and pastor of a growing and busy church and playing host to an international teenager and having grandkids all would seem to be a dream come true for most people. For the most part it is for me too. But it cramps my style a bit when it comes to date night with my favorite wife. In case you don’t know, she is an incredibly gorgeous woman and dating her has been one of my favorite activities from the first day that we met. We try to date as often as possible because it is fun and keeps the romance alive. She loves taking me out in public and showing off her “trophy husband” and then telling all of her girlfriends how lucky she is. I love taking her out in public and watching the eyes turn to have a look at her and knowing that I am going to cut the night really short so that I can get her home where only I can look at her.
I want to encourage married couples to date. Not to schedule a time away from kids to go eat, but a time to get dressed up, open doors, turn heads, flirt, and get a good nights sleep…Right. We need to have fun as married people. Life gets really busy, really fast, and really often and this can cause the romantic fires to dwindle down to nothing but a pile of ashes if we are not careful. It doesn’t have to totally depend on date nights, but they sure do stir the embers. Getting dressed up as if you wanted to impress the other person and then walking around in public and holding hand and sneaking a kiss or an accidental touch here or there makes you remember that you use to do this a lot and you enjoyed it.
I am very fortunate that my wife and I know how to enjoy ourselves without date nights. Like many of you, a busy lifestyle makes date nights few and sometimes far in between. But we still sit around and flirt across the living room and hold hands around the house and she still tries to cop an accident touch of my butt while I get a Diet Mtn. Dew from the fridge. We flirt on Facebook and send texts that say silly things like “oh baby you sure look good in those cut off gym pants” and “what the heck is that in your hair?” We know that being married is much more that flirting and romance, but one thing we are really good at is flirting and romance. Yes, she is a lucky woman and I am a great husband.
Last night we got away for a date night and it was just as much fun as the first date we ever had. The only difference was that I knew I had enough money to put gas in the car and I knew that when we got home, I didn’t have to meet her dad. Other than that, we looked good, we had fun, flirted, and neither of us can wait until the next time we go out for date night.Proverbs 5:18-19
18 Let your own fountain be blessed, and enjoy the girl you married when you were young,
19 a loving doe and a graceful deer. Always let her breasts satisfy you. Always be intoxicated with her love.
I would want to disobey God’s word now, would I? And you shouldn’t either. Date again and again and again.

My beautiful wife and I have been married a long time and one of the reasons is that we keep the romance alive. One of the ways we do this is by having regular date nights. Tonight is one of those and I am really excited about it. My one worry is that it is her night to plan it. Not that she doesn’t plan great things, but she usually has one thing in mind at the end of the date, and we know what I’m talkin’ ’bout. I guess it is a sacrifice that I will have to make.
Some of you are thinking some really weird things right now. I won’t even go into the details of what I know that you are thinking. What I will say is that your marriage could benefit from some of the same. It is sad that many marriages are lacking in this area. Couples much younger than us, are neglecting such an important part of their marriage. Why when we were in our twenties and thirties we use to do it for hours. Most of the time we would do it at home, but we were not afraid to do it in public. She actually likes to do it in public places. She says it shows everyone how lucky she is to have me. What can I say, I am blessed in that area.
I remember when we were first married, I thought everyone did it as much as we did. Many times we would do it several times a day and didn’t need a date night to start things going. Sometimes we would wake up and do it before we ever got out of bed. I use to love it when she would wake me up in the middle of the night for it. Wow, that just don’t happen enough anymore. One of my favorite places to do it was in the kitchen. One time we got into it so much that we forgot about the meal that was in the oven and had to go out to eat. Don’t get me wrong, we still do it in the kitchen, but now we use the microwave timer to keep us from forgetting about dinner.
Most people assume that this is something the pastor and his wife are naturally great at. Early in our ministry we would help couples to overcome some of their struggles in this area. It was always hard to get them to relax and be natural in front of us, but this was the best way that we felt we could help them. Sure they could have told us some of the struggles that they were having, but actually seeing it was best. We could politely interrupt and demonstrate what we do, then let them try it our way. Sometimes it was really funny when to watch the looks on their faces when we messed up. But most of the time our technique worked and both of them were satisfied.
God has blessed us with a great marriage and this one area is a major part of our happiness. I really think that if we weren’t so good at doing this, our marriage would not be so fulfilling. So that is one of the reasons we have date night. This is why she initiates it so often. Lets just say it bluntly. She loves it. Sometimes I swear, she can’t do it enough. I usually quit before she is ready to quit, but I let her finish while I just sit there. Thirty-two years together now and we still love to do it. Man, there is nothing like good conversation.
What were you thinking I was talking about?

Okay, its time for me to do some flirting, or at least attempt to score a few brownie points, even though I don’t need them because she is already my favorite wife. Over the last couple of weeks I have seen a couple of moving stories about couples. One, long dead, was said to be 1500 years old and were buried holding hands, and the other was a couple who died holding hands after 72 years of marriage. WOW!
I have now been married longer than any of my children have been alive. As a matter of fact, I have been married longer than a lot of people in my congregation at my church. It will be 32 years this coming July and what is really weird is that I am still very young. I got married when I was a wee child of 18. If you are good at math, you can see that I am barely over 40 years old.
In my first church where I was pastor, there were lots of old people. At my current church there are not that many old people, but that’s another story. At that other church there were 4 couples who had been married for over 60 years. That was one of the highlights of that pastorate. I was always amazed at them and how much they still seemed to love each other. When I spent time with them, I always asked them to give me advice on how to keep my marriage together for that long, and remain as happy as they seemed. What they told me was not complicated and they all gave me the same four suggestions. Keep God in you marriage. Have fun and laugh at and with each other. Flirt so much that she/he never doubts that you find them attractive. Fight fair and make up quickly. After hearing these things, I immediately knew that I had a great chance of having a long marriage. Now all I have to do is not die soon.
I wish that I could say that I married my high school sweetheart and that we dated for years and were in church forever, but that is not true. I met her at a party, and we knew each other only 6 months before we got married. From the minute I saw her, I knew that I wanted to date her, of course I was only 17 and she was drop dead gorgeous and every other guy on the planet would want to date her too, but I wanted to date her right then. Thankfully, she was open to the idea of dating me and after a few months, I figured that I better lock this thing down before she realized what she was doing. So we got married and here it is almost 32 years later and she still has no idea what she has gotten herself into.
We have a great marriage. We love and serve God together. If I had to pastor a church without her, I probably wouldn’t. She is so gifted and humble and is a walking example of God’s grace. We have fun and laugh a lot. As different as we are, we purposefully do things together just for fun. She says that I am a comedian, but no one makes me laugh more than her. We flirt, I more than her. All she has to do is walk in the room and I think that she is flirting. I still by her flowers and candy for no specific reason, and she lets me stare at her. We fight. I would like to say we fight fair, but I am not sure if that would be true, but we do make up quickly. I hate it when she ignores me and she hates it when I act real stupid. So we still work on fighting fair, and for the most part, we do okay.
I love being married to her. I can’t imagine not having her around. I hope that we live to see our 80th wedding anniversary but if not, I hope that we have one of those stories that make people go awwww, when we kick the bucket. But mostly, I want to live a life in front of people that makes them want to be married. Marriage takes a bad rap these days and too many people are trying to find true love like they are test driving cars. True love doesn’t come until you have been married a while. The longer you are married, if you follow the advice from my friends, the greater your love will grow. And don’t think that all the fun ends with marriage and age. With greater love comes great joy and greater fun. My married life is better than ever, and it will probably only get better over the next 20 years or so. I am wildly, madly, passionately in love with my wife. Staying married to her is all the blessing I need. I am very grateful for that woman God gave me.

This morning I was having date night hangover. NO, I did not go out drinking last night, but I did wake up, after very little sleep, and I felt like I was a bit discombobulated. I know many are thinking, ‘how can you feel that way and still use such a big word?’. Others are wondering if this is the proper use of the word. And still others, but a very small minority, really don’t care.
We had a mostly unpretentious night, that included dinner, coffee, and some casual conversation. The company was impeccable and the food was adequate and the coffee was less than stimulating, but then again, I only partially ingested it. It is not my preference to consume beverages of that variety, hot and caffeinated, at that time of the evening, but my wife can be impetuous about her coffee and because it was date night, I wanted to meet all of her expectations. At the end of the evening, I exceeded her expectations even though they were low to begin with, but my exuberance to impress her was flawless in its application and adaptation.

So this morning as I was preparing for my commute to the office I was looking for my Kangaroo cup because it allows me to receive refills of my favorite cold beverage free of exchanging any currency. This cup was the benefaction of a munificent comrade who attends the congregation of which I pastor. For some ambiguous reason I could not locate this cup and I felt myself become irascible.
My anxiety was alleviated when I finally located my cup. I was able to obtain my refill, free of charge, and greet the store attendant who had a lackadaisical demeanor, with newly found enthusiasm thanks to the locating of this cup. As I left the convenience store with my delightfully refreshing beverage and a new-found exuberance for the day ahead, I could only smile as I reflected on the amazing and almost comical way this day had unfolded in such a short period of time. The world had once again become amiable and enthusiasm abounded as I began to permeate the world with my overabundance of joy.
Here at the office I have continued to exponentially increase the positive direction of my day by indulging in an exegetical study of the word of God that is the illumination of the world and the verisimilitude writings of the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent Creator of the universe. His salvation and redemptive attitude toward sinful homo-sapiens is incomprehensible and overwhelming in its ability to penetrate an impervious heart.
He loves us so much that words just can’t describe it.